Pusillanimity and the Post-It Note

When we were children playing hide and seek the most popular hiding places were behind trees. It's one sign of the way the world has changed that today's  conservation managers like to hide behind post-it notes.



Sheffield Moors Partnership (SMP) conducted the most cowardly consultation in 2012 on their Master Plan. It was the worst example of chickening out I've come across in the sphere of public meetings, but it needs saying that the strategy has become increasingly used by public bodies around here despite being discredited.
It amounts to fear of public scrutiny.**

See:
Partner Ploys
Being Scrutinised

It was frankly embarrassing. A consultation that was to finish up with an expensive glossy brochure giving the message that this was the outcome of extensive public engagement, yet a refusal to engage in discussion on real issues. Those partners, or their representatives looked uncomfortable when people did manage to question them. Their faint-heartedness was shocking and their guilty looks spoke volumes as they hid behind post-it notes. Instead of dialogue this was a consultation characterised by absence and cheating. Nobody wanted to talk about anything. They had of course already decided the outcome and were bothered that somebody might try to take their programme off course.

**It's been suggested that there should be a phobia term for this condition. None of the phobia lists consulted have helped so a new word elegophobia has been coined using the first letters for the greek word for scrutiny. I'm awaiting the authority of a greek scholar for this to be confirmed.

Not Open to Amendment

My questions to the new SWT manager, Nabil, were:

Dear Nabil

Could you please explain what will be covered in this one evening’s public engagement event on 18^th September. Some have been heard to say that it’s a waste of time, that the significant decisions have all been taken and that it’s not honest to give people the impression that they have any real influence.

In 2006 there was a consultation that went over 7 months with three hour plus meetings. At the end of that we understood that a thorough review of management would happen after 5 years. A paper entitled ‘Management Planning 2011’ was distributed in 2011 giving a timetable for that review which would deal with the “vision, aims, objectives” plus other management elements. A series of consultation events was outlined which would span 5 months. That review was to ‘inform the Higher Level Scheme application’. None of that happened and the key Higher Level Scheme was agreed between SWT and NE with no input from the management plan review because that review did not happen.

Before committing to engage with this very much reduced process we need to know:

a) are certain things outside the scope of this public engagement because they have already been decided and are now fixed for ten years?

b) will Natural England representative(s) be present?

c) who will be present?

d) are all of the elements described in the Management Planning 2011 document to be discussed?

e) will this process continue over coming months?

f) what explanation is given for there being no RAG meetings since December 2012, a period during which the HLS agreement was concluded but not discussed by the RAG,  when the Chief Executive told Sheffield City Council Scrutiny Board that they were held every two months?

Best regards,

The full exchange can be read on this link:

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ba8avgqwkbgdur/Dear%20Nabil.doc?dl=0

The significant paragraph from the reply is below:

Not all of the management aims are open to amendment  because we are working towards a long-term vision carried forward from the previous Management Plan and which falls under the Sheffield Moors Masterplan, a framework that has been adopted by all partners working across the Sheffield Moors area following extensive public engagement.  

That needs some interpretation:
In current bureaucrat-speak "Not all" should be understood to say "Almost none".
Exactly what we have been saying in fact.  The few things that can be influenced are like crumbs thrown from the table.

This means that local people have no  power to influence the most important decisions which affect the character of the land and our experience when using it. The only way of doing this is by our setting our own stamp on the vision for Blacka. And that we will not be allowed to do.

As for the Sheffield Moors Partnership's (SMP) Masterplan no intelligent observer of the process by which that was devised could credit it with any meaningful public scrutiny. In fact the supposed  consultation was fraudulent. That word is used advisedly. Beyond being 'poor' or 'inadequate' or 'not good enough'. The word 'fraudulent' describes it exactly, because the process as designed by professionals in the industry, set out from the start to deceive the decision makers in the Town Hall. The managers knew what could be got past the largely ignorant cabinet members who would then approve their plans. They simply had to produce a glossy brochure complete with accounts and reports and photographs that inflated the validity of the p**spoor public meetings and the character of the consultation. Key decsions had been taken and huge grants secured long before the public were invited to express a view and even then were not encouraged dto ask serious questions. The master plan's main elements were well entrenched in advance of the meetings with the public -apparently a consultation but in fact a shameful process depending on no interchange of ideas and visions, simply an invitation to write things on post-it notes which could then be picked over by managers to choose those that supported plans they had already made.

And that same format is being followed again: the utterly disreputable post-it note consultation.

New Bridleway Plan Shock

Pictures on this post show walkers paths on one of the few remaining tranquil areas on Blacka, a haven for wildlife and a place to escape from the through traffic of packs of MTBers, horses and others for whom means of propulsion is more important than the place being accessed.

The context is another potential debacle; a direct consequence of Sheffield Wildlife Trust's failure to hold RAG (Reserve Advisory Group) meetings for two years, to their shame. And the failures of our local politicians to take their scrutiny role seriously. It's also a comment on the 'Stakeholder Culture' whereby weak management capitulates to pushy single interest groups instead of considering the public as a whole.

It seems management in the Public Rights of Way (PRoW) department of Sheffield City Council (SCC) is well ahead with plans to create a new bridleway on Blacka. This is the first I've heard about it but should not be surprised that SCC departments, who hate the very idea of transparency and public scrutiny, could be keeping us in the dark until plans are advanced.

They  have been lobbied by local horse riding groups.

There are 5 kilometres of bridleway on Blacka itself and much more on the adjoining public land. But that is not enough it seems. They must have more.

The pictures here are all taken along the route which would be 3 metres wide at least and constructed with heavy machinery. Wild plants and fungi will be scraped over and covered by imported stone in the usual insensitive way leaving the job unfinished in the hope that time will cover over the clumsy construction.

As for the PRoW team they also like to make out their jobs are necessary. To them the best way of doing that is inventing new projects like this.

An article in this week's Sheffield Telegraph is on a similar subject. I would not use the word 'upgrade' to describe turning an attractive informal path created by the gentle tread of people over many years into something 3 metres wide for machines to use. If it's worse it's a downgrade.

Flying Predator

At long last a picture of a dragonfly in flight. This time only nine photos with nothing in them before the lucky one. They are of course spectacular fliers, each of the four wings moving independently. Now you see it ....

Meanwhile another expert predator in flight has taken to the trees:

Gossamer Wonders

Natural spectacles can seem more compelling when they are further away. The more effort you have to make (travel, expense etc.) to see something the more attention it gets. Who would not want to see a Bengal Tiger, yet the answer may be those who live in Bengal, though that could be down to an understandable sense of caution. But a similar case could be made for less fearsome beasts in other exotic parts.

What might we have to do to persuade local people in large numbers to make just a bit of an effort to see the wonders of very accessible spectacles such as the many hundreds of spider webs decorating Blacka, each one unique in its beauty?

Numbers and statistic are such an obsession today in being used as a measure of value. Somebody could frame a question along the lines of:

"If it were possible to combine all the spider silk threads we can see into one single thread how far could it stretch between Earth and the moon?" It seems a fatuous question to me but would it be just the one to capture the attention of some who have not the instinctive feel for what is beautiful? This may take us back again to Hard Times.

There are many kinds of spider silk and the finest is said to be that used by baby spiders launching themselves onto the air. That used for constructing webs was all over the site this week. Still conditions are good for small insects that don't like restless winds. Hence the predators out to net them. But what an artistic way to do it.

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE

THE FUTURE OF FRIENDS OF BLACKAMOOR AND THIS BLOG

It's necessary to contact regular readers.

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Retiring Dispositions

Most wildlife is shy. Attention seeking is restricted to certain pushy species such as the Robin who has learned long ago that humanity has its uses.

While Robins are regulars at bird tables, Wrens show no interest at all. They move about like mice, quickly and close to the ground. Consequently it's not as easy to find out much about them. Books have been written about Robins including some detailed behaviour studies. Theories about Wren behaviour can persist for years before somebody manages to prove them wrong. It is simply so good at avoiding attention. Another bird that I had always thought shy and nervous is the Dunnock. I'm sure I remember from many years ago that Dunnocks would keep away from bird tables just like the Wren.

But not so. These days at least it attends the bird table along with the others. Maybe I was mistaken or maybe it has learned it pays to show more spirit.

The deer are an odd case: depending on where you are or their mood of  the moment (or simply which way the wind is blowing), you may or may not get close. 

Today they were wary and suspicious. All the better. That is totally natural behaviour for beasts whose survival over many thousands of years has depended on not trusting anything or anyone.